Latest / Marriage Life and More and Bible Study / Should We Use Porn to Improve Sex in Marriage? - 223

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Should We Use Porn to Improve Sex in Marriage? - 223 · Marriage Life and More and Bible Study

• 0:00
  Daniel Moore: This week it's a blast from the past.
• 0:01
  Daniel Moore: While we take a short break from recording, enjoy a few of our favorite episodes from the past, and we'll be back soon with brand new episodes.
• 0:09
  Daniel Moore: This episode covers some adult themed material in nature.
• 0:14
  Daniel Moore: If you have young ones around, I'd pop in my earbuds or listen to this when you are by yourself.
• 0:18
  Daniel Moore: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:43
  Michelle Moore: But I can't imagine not having that intimacy with a partner day in, day out, that I wasn't married to.
• 0:56
  Michelle Moore: I want some kind of it seems like the connection with That's why actually you just took that.
• 1:01
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 1:01
  Michelle Moore: I would want that connection to know you're mine.
• 1:05
  Michelle Moore: Right and you're nobody else's.
• 1:06
  Michelle Moore: Right.
• 1:07
  Michelle Moore: I I wanna I I just I I can't fathom of, oh, I'm done with you, just move out.
• 1:13
  Michelle Moore: And I think that's really hard when you have children and those children meet a guy, vice versa.
• 1:20
  Michelle Moore: You know, you're bringing different people in and out.
• 1:23
  Michelle Moore: And so I I see that a lot with single, you know, single moms, and that's really hard on the children.
• 1:28
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 1:29
  Michelle Moore: You know, and so that, you know, I don't want to create a generation that's gonna grow up and that's like this is normal, you know, and we don't want that.
• 1:37
  Daniel Moore: This week we are continuing the law of purity as we're getting close to wrapping up our study on the four laws of love.
• 1:44
  Daniel Moore: And this week we're gonna start a two-part series on true sexual intimacy.
• 1:50
  Daniel Moore: We'll be back with that right after this.
• 1:52
  Daniel Moore: Or a few people sharing their inspiring stories.
• 2:38
  Daniel Moore: I'm Daniel Moore, your host, and Michelle Moore, my wife, here is co-hosting with me.
• 2:43
  Michelle Moore: Hey guys.
• 2:43
  Daniel Moore: Just glad to be with you guys again this week.
• 2:46
  Daniel Moore: Thank you for joining us.
• 2:47
  Daniel Moore: If you're not familiar with our show, you can check out our website at marriagelifeandmore.com or also connectingthegap.net.
• 2:54
  Daniel Moore: There are platforms that are on there, YouTube and Rumble links.
• 2:56
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• 2:59
  Daniel Moore: And we're also on your Alexa and Google Smart devices.
• 3:02
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• 3:07
  Daniel Moore: If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe.
• 3:09
  Daniel Moore: Feel free to leave us a comment on our platforms, give us a thumbs up or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
• 3:15
  Daniel Moore: That's what helps our podcast to grow and to reach more and more people that need to hear these series that we share here on marriage life and more.
• 3:24
  Daniel Moore: Well, as I said here in the beginning, uh we've been doing this a while.
• 3:30
  Daniel Moore: I think we started this in the end of October, and I knew this series would go for a while, but I don't think I really thought it'd go this long.
• 3:37
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 3:38
  Daniel Moore: Uh, but we've had we've covered a lot of territory.
• 3:41
  Michelle Moore: Yes, we have.
• 3:42
  Daniel Moore: There's a lot that we've put into this, and I hope somewhere with throughout this whole series this you know something has resonated with you all out there.
• 3:49
  Daniel Moore: We have got some good feedback on the series.
• 3:52
  Daniel Moore: A lot of people have really enjoyed it, and it's actually helped them a lot in looking at things a little differently in their marriage.
• 3:57
  Daniel Moore: And Michelle and I have grown in our marriages as we've gone through this this series as well.
• 4:02
  Michelle Moore: And it's been very interesting in how it's made us just grow, just in general, not just personally, but as a couple.
• 4:08
  Michelle Moore: Um, what was the words that you used?
• 4:10
  Daniel Moore: It's I mean, I feel like it's made us closer, more connected.
• 4:13
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 4:14
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, it's it's been quite interesting because, you know, Michelle and I, we've talked about this a little bit to some of our friends uh that's close to us, but you know, Michelle and I, with all the stuff that we've been through in our past and our marriage, uh, we've talked about that stuff and you know, we've forgiven each other and we've kind of hashed our way through those things, but I think that this series has really opened up a even more depth of conversation probably than we've ever even really had on it.
• 4:44
  Daniel Moore: So it's been kind of cool to a deeper level.
• 4:46
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, and it is truly a deeper level, it has been very much a deeper level for both of us to go into this.
• 4:52
  Daniel Moore: And uh, you know, it it just it proves to the fact that that healing continues you know on into your life.
• 5:01
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Daniel Moore: Uh you can get past things and get to a point where you are happy in your situation, but it it doesn't mean that you're completely healed.
• 5:10
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Daniel Moore: And I think that as time goes along, uh, as they like to say, you know, time heals all wounds.
• 5:17
  Daniel Moore: I agree with that to an extent.
• 5:18
  Daniel Moore: I think there's some wounds that, you know, time may not actually heal necessarily depending on the person, but in all reality, with what we've been through, I feel like there has been even more healing as we've gone through this series.
• 5:31
  Daniel Moore: And I'm looking forward to what we have in the future.
• 5:33
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 5:34
  Daniel Moore: Um just uh a little sneak peek.
• 5:37
  Daniel Moore: Uh, we'll talk about it again at the end here.
• 5:39
  Daniel Moore: We got some interviews coming up with some awesome couples that uh have some unique scenarios in their marriages.
• 5:46
  Daniel Moore: Uh-huh.
• 5:46
  Daniel Moore: Uh so we're looking forward to that.
• 5:48
  Daniel Moore: And then Michelle and I still have more to our story.
• 5:51
  Daniel Moore: We haven't actually shared everything yet.
• 5:53
  Daniel Moore: And so we're gonna have some episodes coming up in the near future where we're going to talk about, you know, a couple different subjects uh that people deal with in marriages sometime, as far as you know, if a spouse has a major illness or a sickness that takes place, how you navigate through those things.
• 6:10
  Daniel Moore: Uh, Michelle um had a major loss in her family um that caused a uh a very traumatic situation happened, and we had to navigate through that with us and our children.
• 6:22
  Daniel Moore: And so we're going to be hitting on all of that in the future.
• 6:25
  Daniel Moore: So that a little bit of some stuff there to look forward to.
• 6:28
  Daniel Moore: But this week we are finally to the final two episodes of this series, The Four Laws of Love, and we have finally gotten to the sex part.
• 6:37
  Daniel Moore: So we're going to go ahead and get started on that this week as we talk about true sexual intimacy.
• 6:44
  Michelle Moore: And this might be something that little ears probably shouldn't hear.
• 6:49
  Michelle Moore: And would you agree?
• 6:51
  Daniel Moore: That's probably a good point.
• 6:52
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 6:52
  Daniel Moore: Uh, if you do have your buds, you might want to pop those in or maybe listen to this when you're alone because there's some stuff in there that's a little heavy.
• 7:01
  Daniel Moore: Uh, I'm not gonna say it's gonna get real super graphic, but at the same time, I don't know what your boundaries are with your children, so you might want to just keep that in mind as we start these these next two episodes.
• 7:13
  Daniel Moore: So we're gonna go ahead and get into it then here with true sexual intimacy.
• 7:18
  Daniel Moore: Our society is the most sexually confused culture in the history of the world.
• 7:32
  Daniel Moore: And because of technology and the internet, the average person is experiencing sexual excitement much more than ever before, and in more ways than before.
• 7:42
  Daniel Moore: However, in most cases, it isn't resulting in greater marital satisfaction or intimacy, it's actually quite the opposite.
• 7:50
  Daniel Moore: The primary reason for this is pornography.
• 7:54
  Daniel Moore: Consider these troubling statistics.
• 7:57
  Daniel Moore: A survey conducted by the Barna Group found that approximately two-thirds or sixty-four percent of US men view pornography at least monthly.
• 8:07
  Daniel Moore: Moreover, the study revealed the number of Christian men viewing pornography virtually mirrors the national average broken down by age.
• 8:15
  Daniel Moore: Eight in ten men, that's 79%, between the ages of 18 and 30, view pornography monthly.
• 8:23
  Daniel Moore: Two-thirds or sixty-seven percent of men between the ages of thirty-one and forty-nine view pornography monthly.
• 8:30
  Daniel Moore: One half or forty-nine percent of men between the ages of fifty and sixty-eight view pornography monthly.
• 8:37
  Daniel Moore: Christian men are watching pornography at work at the same rate as the national average.
• 8:43
  Michelle Moore: That just blows my mind.
• 8:44
  Michelle Moore: I'm sorry, I cut in here.
• 8:46
  Michelle Moore: I'm just, I don't know.
• 8:48
  Michelle Moore: These statistics are a lot.
• 8:50
  Daniel Moore: It's very disturbing.
• 8:51
  Daniel Moore: Yes, sorry.
• 8:51
  Daniel Moore: That's for sure.
• 8:52
  Michelle Moore: Go ahead, sorry.
• 8:53
  Daniel Moore: One-third or thirty-three percent of men between the ages of 18 and 30 either think that they are addicted or are unsure if they are addicted to pornography.
• 9:04
  Daniel Moore: Combined, 18% of all men either think that they are addicted or unsure of if they are addicted to pornography, which equates to about 21 million men.
• 9:16
  Daniel Moore: Consider these statistics though concerning women and couples' pornography use.
• 9:22
  Daniel Moore: Over half of women watch pornography videos on their own.
• 9:26
  Daniel Moore: Nine percent of these say they watch porn every day.
• 9:30
  Daniel Moore: Women generally favor soft porn at 76% or role play at 47%.
• 9:36
  Daniel Moore: Most women, or 96%, have watched porn with a partner and say it improves sex.
• 9:43
  Daniel Moore: Making home videos is an increasingly popular trend for couples.
• 9:49
  Daniel Moore: So as we go through these disturbing statistics here, uh I think one thing that really surprises me probably the most to an extent is the fact that and I have read these statistics before in a previous episode that I did with Luke Taylor about a year, year and a half ago or so, we kind of covered some of this a little bit.
• 10:11
  Daniel Moore: But the fact that the Christian uh general the Christian population is having as much problem with it as the non-Christian, or in some cases, even more.
• 10:22
  Daniel Moore: And I know that there's a lot of statistics out there today that I've read about even with pastors and churches that are failing and having problems with this.
• 10:32
  Daniel Moore: And I think that the disturbing part of it as well is a lot of Christians are actually accepting it and thinking that what they're doing isn't really all that bad.
• 10:42
  Daniel Moore: They're still allowing that to take place.
• 10:44
  Daniel Moore: I know here recently, for anybody that's keeps up with the news, Paula Baker, she's the evangelical lead that Donald Trump put into position for his evangelical team.
• 10:56
  Daniel Moore: And she's a very well-known uh pastor, I guess you would call her.
• 11:02
  Daniel Moore: She calls herself a pastor.
• 11:04
  Daniel Moore: Uh, she's very well known in the evangelical circles, the Christian circles.
• 11:08
  Daniel Moore: And her and her husband were at a marriage retreat here recently.
• 11:12
  Daniel Moore: And uh they were, they've got the video out there, the recording, it's all out there.
• 11:17
  Daniel Moore: But they were talking about couples that are having troubles with having sex and having intimacy between each other in a sexual manner, and they laughingly suggested that maybe you should get some porn and watch it and maybe learn some stuff and figure out some better ways to do it if you're all bored with your sex life and all that kind of thing.
• 11:38
  Daniel Moore: And they were very serious about that when they said it, and that was shocking to a lot of the Christian community because as Christians, we know that when you get into pornography, that's a road that Satan takes a lot of people down, and it usually becomes an addiction.
• 11:56
  Daniel Moore: And that also destroys marriages.
• 12:00
  Michelle Moore: Yep.
• 12:00
  Daniel Moore: I can say for myself, with my first marriage, I had a lot of pornography use.
• 12:05
  Daniel Moore: And I I do think that some of the issues that I had in my first marriage, uh, I can actually attribute some of that to what took place there because there is a numbing.
• 12:17
  Daniel Moore: I know a lot of people that I've talked to and friends that I know that have had pornography issues, and other people that I've talked to about it, uh, they will admit to you that, you know, we can try to say that we have control and that we can start or stop something anytime we want to, or we can watch things and it doesn't bother us.
• 12:35
  Daniel Moore: We can let things get into our mind gate without it affecting the way that we look at other things or look at other people.
• 12:42
  Daniel Moore: But in all reality, that might be true at the very beginning when you very first start doing it.
• 12:47
  Daniel Moore: But the more that you do it and the more that it gets embedded in your mind, it does start twisting your view of things and twisting how you feel about things and think about things.
• 12:57
  Daniel Moore: And a lot of times when you use pornography, especially in marriage, it's going to dumb down those feelings that you have for your spouse.
• 13:05
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 13:06
  Daniel Moore: Because you're going to see a lot of things on video that are fantasy, just a big fantasy world.
• 13:11
  Daniel Moore: Uh, these people are getting paid to do all of this kind of stuff.
• 13:14
  Daniel Moore: And we know that when you start watching pornography, it starts out small and then that gets boring.
• 13:20
  Daniel Moore: So you stair step to the next worst-case scenario, and that gets boring, and then you just keep going till you get into the shock stuff, the stuff that's just absolutely disgusting.
• 13:29
  Daniel Moore: But it takes that to satisfy that hunger that you have and that addiction that you have to pornography.
• 13:35
  Daniel Moore: And when you get to that point, that's what it takes to stimulate you, that extreme stuff.
• 13:41
  Daniel Moore: But then when your spouse doesn't want to do that extreme stuff, then that creates an issue between you and your spouse in your relationship because then you're not satisfied sexually anymore.
• 13:52
  Daniel Moore: Right.
• 13:52
  Daniel Moore: And then when that happens, the feelings between the two of you, plus the fact that most spouses hide it, they don't let their other spouse know that they're even watching this stuff or partaking of it.
• 14:03
  Daniel Moore: So not only are they having these issues, then performing when they're trying to have sex, sexual relations in bed or whatever it may be, but there's also this secret going on that they're trying to keep from their spouse.
• 14:15
  Daniel Moore: In their mind, they're fighting these mind games, trying to get over the issues that's causing uh the problems between the two spouses without letting the other spouse know that the true root of all of this is a pornography problem, you know.
• 14:29
  Daniel Moore: And so when all that stuff comes into play, it's just a very dangerous road to take when you're trying to keep your marriage together, let alone the fact that you're in sin.
• 14:40
  Daniel Moore: Uh when you live that kind of a lifestyle, you know, if if your moment came that you were taken away, uh you, you know, that's gonna very much hurt your the reality of you being in heaven someday uh when you have this kind of addiction in your life and you cannot get over it, and you're letting it control you.
• 14:58
  Daniel Moore: And so, and I think too over the last years here, the pornography use in women has really risen.
• 15:06
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Daniel Moore: And, you know, we used to lead a life group of college-age uh and young adults at another church, and it was an Assembly of God church, and you know, even within that group, we had issues where there was male and female pornography use.
• 15:22
  Daniel Moore: And Michelle and I were both approached on different occasions with this issue, and you know, they were trying to seek some help from us and some guidance on how to get over that, and in all reality, as a personal choice, you have to come to a point where between you and God that you nix that and get rid of it, and you know, you have to replace that stuff with godly things, you have to start watching sermons, listen to Christian music, just everything you do, you need to saturate your mind with the things of God, get some counseling if that's the case, if that's something that's needed.
• 15:58
  Daniel Moore: But it's not worth destroying a marriage over over pornography and that kind of thing.
• 16:05
  Daniel Moore: Uh, you know, as we stated at the beginning of this episode, the average person is experiencing more sexual stimulation and excitement than ever before, but it's not improving marriages or resulting in increased intimacy in marriage relationships.
• 16:18
  Daniel Moore: And there's several reasons for this.
• 16:20
  Daniel Moore: And one reason is what we addressed actually in our previous episodes on sexual intimacy, and that is that sexual intimacy, as we talked about that, it was only one-fourth of that intimacy equation.
• 16:32
  Daniel Moore: And if you remember when I very first asked you in that episode, what do you think of when you think of intimacy?
• 16:39
  Daniel Moore: What what was your answer that you gave me?
• 16:42
  Michelle Moore: Was it sex?
• 16:43
  Daniel Moore: Yes, it was.
• 16:45
  Michelle Moore: Sorry, guys.
• 16:46
  Michelle Moore: Too many things go on in my mind that I'm just like, am I gonna answer this one right?
• 16:50
  Daniel Moore: You get an A.
• 16:51
  Michelle Moore: That was not scripted, so I was like, this is a trick question.
• 16:54
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, no, no trick to it.
• 16:55
  Daniel Moore: That is how you answered it.
• 16:57
  Daniel Moore: Yes.
• 16:57
  Daniel Moore: And I think most people think of it that way.
• 16:59
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 17:00
  Daniel Moore: But in all reality, sexual intimacy is only one-fourth of that.
• 17:04
  Daniel Moore: And our society has lost its way morally and truly believes that increased sexual frequency will fill that intimacy void.
• 17:11
  Daniel Moore: If you don't have that intimacy in your life, they think, well, if I just have more sex or whatever, then that's all it's gonna take.
• 17:16
  Daniel Moore: But as we, you know, studied in that last episode, that wasn't the case.
• 17:21
  Daniel Moore: Uh, there's more to it than just that, and that's just a lie, whenever that comes up that way.
• 17:26
  Daniel Moore: And it results in divorces and sexual addictions, sexual sexual isolation, where an increasing number of men and women are choosing sexual self-pleasuring over having sex with a mate.
• 17:36
  Daniel Moore: It's a troubling trend that has dramatic social implications when viewed from a multi-generational or sociological perspective.
• 17:44
  Daniel Moore: Another important reason why increased sexual frequency isn't resulting in intimacy is that we were created by God to bond to only one person.
• 17:51
  Daniel Moore: Every time we have sex with our spouses, we are flooded with very powerful hormones and chemicals that literally wire our brains to each other.
• 17:59
  Daniel Moore: Prolactin is one hormone that is released when we have sex that causes us to relax and reduces stress.
• 18:06
  Daniel Moore: Vasopressin is another powerful hormone and it's released during sex and it causes us to bond with our spouses.
• 18:13
  Daniel Moore: And amazingly, research has proven that it also causes us to find members of the opposite sex other than our spouses less attractive.
• 18:23
  Daniel Moore: The hormone oxytocin is also released during sex, it is called the cuddle hormone, and it causes deepened feelings of trust and attachment between couples.
• 18:34
  Daniel Moore: And Michelle and I have talked about this a little bit, about how it seems like today marriage isn't really as big of a thing for young adults.
• 18:43
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 18:43
  Daniel Moore: They would rather stay single or live with their girlfriends or boyfriends, or if they if they are single, uh, sometimes you'll find that those single people have pornography addictions because they just prefer to keep everything to themselves and not even involve another person.
• 18:59
  Daniel Moore: And that really seems to be happening a lot these days.
• 19:03
  Daniel Moore: Do you have any insight on why you think that's the case from anything?
• 19:07
  Daniel Moore: Because I know that you know there you're around a lot of single girls that aren't married that, you know, have kids and that kind of thing.
• 19:15
  Daniel Moore: Is there kind of some like some kind of a trend or something that you're seeing?
• 19:19
  Michelle Moore: No, I think a lot of it is I mean, from my perspective, this is not definitely a perspective from a doctor or anything statistically or anything, just from just looking is I think a lot of them, if they've been through a relationship um to where they've been hurt or they've had to do everything on their own to begin with, why not just do it yourself?
• 19:41
  Michelle Moore: You don't need someone there.
• 19:43
  Michelle Moore: And I think a lot of times if you do go through a relationship or a bad marriage, you don't want to have to experience that again and go through a divorce.
• 19:54
  Michelle Moore: So it's just easier to live with someone versus getting married all over again.
• 19:59
  Michelle Moore: And I also think part of it too, and I may be wrong, but you got a lot of different benefits when you're a single mom with children, you know.
• 20:08
  Daniel Moore: Financially.
• 20:09
  Michelle Moore: Yes, you're gonna give that up if you do get remarried or whatever.
• 20:14
  Michelle Moore: But it it is very odd to me to think, well, it's even different now, the fact that, you know, I was 19, I was already married 18, I was already married.
• 20:24
  Michelle Moore: Now they're all waiting until they're like late 20s.
• 20:27
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, I think the average I heard the other day was 28 to 30.
• 20:30
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 20:30
  Michelle Moore: It's so different.
• 20:31
  Michelle Moore: And when people have kids, you're usually that 28 and up age now.
• 20:36
  Michelle Moore: And you know, I had all three all three.
• 20:39
  Daniel Moore: I had all my kids, and I think you had I think you were a little bit older than a little later because I got married when I was twenty-one, I think it was, and I did not have a child till I was twenty-eight.
• 20:48
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Daniel Moore: So we waited for on Brooklyn, but but you're older than me.
• 20:53
  Daniel Moore: I'm older than you.
• 20:53
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, you're five years older than me.
• 20:54
  Michelle Moore: It timed out where the kids were practically the same age because Jake and Brooke are the exact same age, they're a month apart.
• 21:02
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 21:03
  Michelle Moore: And so I mean, I had mine, I mean, Jacob, I was nineteen and I had Jeremiah turn around 16 months later.
• 21:10
  Michelle Moore: So I mean, if you really think about it, so much has changed in the years that it it is different.
• 21:17
  Michelle Moore: Um traditionally, you know, people would get married right after or they'd get married before they're even eighteen if they worked on a farm and you know, those older years, but I can't imagine not having that intimacy with a partner day in, day out that I wasn't married to.
• 21:44
  Michelle Moore: I I want some kind of It seems like the connection would be.
• 21:48
  Michelle Moore: That's why actually you just took that.
• 21:49
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 21:50
  Michelle Moore: I I would want that connection to know you're mine.
• 21:53
  Michelle Moore: Right and you're nobody else's.
• 21:55
  Michelle Moore: Right.
• 21:55
  Michelle Moore: I I wanna I I just I I can't fathom of Oh, I'm done with you.
• 22:01
  Michelle Moore: Just move out.
• 22:01
  Michelle Moore: And I think that's really hard when you have children and those children meet a guy, vice versa.
• 22:08
  Michelle Moore: You know, you're bringing different people in and out.
• 22:11
  Michelle Moore: And so I I see that a lot with single, you know, single moms.
• 22:15
  Michelle Moore: And that's really hard on the children.
• 22:17
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Michelle Moore: You know, and so that, you know, I don't want to create a generation that's going to grow up and that's like this is normal, you know, and we don't want that.
• 22:25
  Daniel Moore: No, and it's, you know, I think it also shows how the culture has gravitated away from biblical foundations.
• 22:32
  Michelle Moore: Oh, absolutely.
• 22:34
  Daniel Moore: And but what's crazy is a lot of them do are church.
• 22:37
  Daniel Moore: I think that's what's odd about it, because a lot of the ones that that I know, you know, that I come across sometimes, they may be single and living with a boyfriend or whatever it may be, and they may have a child together, possibly.
• 22:48
  Daniel Moore: They just haven't actually done the marriage thing.
• 22:50
  Daniel Moore: But they go to church, they think everything's okay, they just don't really think about none of that.
• 22:55
  Daniel Moore: And it's there's just a lot of things about that that I think really shows how uh this the society can transition and have a f a flip, you know, and have a switch.
• 23:06
  Michelle Moore: And and I will say our pastor, he will biblically preach on this quite often.
• 23:13
  Michelle Moore: Right from the pulpit.
• 23:15
  Michelle Moore: Yep, right from the pulpit.
• 23:16
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, sex before marriage, living with someone that you're not married to, pornography, you know, that is being preached from the pulpit, and he's, you know, it is biblical, it is not supposed to be happening.
• 23:31
  Michelle Moore: And he will stand up there, and I'm sure he doesn't get the high fives and everything like that, because you do have the unmarried uh dating couple that live together and everything, and they come in and hear a sermon like that, you know.
• 23:44
  Michelle Moore: It but he he preaches it all biblically, and I mean I wish other ministers would.
• 23:51
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, more charges can be doing it.
• 23:53
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:55
  Daniel Moore: So these are just a few examples of what happens when we have sex with our spouses just chemically in our chemical balance.
• 24:02
  Daniel Moore: And God designed sex to be a force that bonds husbands and wives together with that powerful cocktail of chemicals and hormones.
• 24:11
  Daniel Moore: But the problem is, you know, when you start watching pornography, those same chemicals are released, but they are attaching to your brain to someone other than your spouse.
• 24:21
  Daniel Moore: So the more pornography you watch, the more confused your brain becomes.
• 24:26
  Daniel Moore: The sexual hardwiring that should only be occurring with your spouse is now being shared with many others.
• 24:32
  Daniel Moore: And it messes with how our minds process sexual information.
• 24:36
  Daniel Moore: They are by far the most powerful sex organ that we all have.
• 24:40
  Daniel Moore: The more pornography we watch and sexual stimulation that we experience with someone other than our spouses, the less bonded we become with them and the less sexual excitement they create for us.
• 24:51
  Daniel Moore: I kind of hit that just a little bit earlier.
• 24:53
  Daniel Moore: I heard there's one sex educator uh said that when a man watches pornography and then has sex with his wife, it's really nothing more than vaginal masturbation.
• 25:04
  Daniel Moore: And because of pornography, an increasing number of young men in their 20s and 30s are having to use Viagra in order to get an erection because of the sexual overstimulation that they are experiencing.
• 25:16
  Daniel Moore: And this one here is really uh a prominent thing that you hear uh that people like to rebut, do a rebuttal on and argue with you over.
• 25:26
  Daniel Moore: But in all reality, couples who watch porn to get sexually stimulated before having sex, you're in essence really inviting other people into your bedrooms, and you're actually compounding the problem that you think that you are solving.
• 25:39
  Daniel Moore: When you have to watch porn to get excited to have sex, you're effectively telling your spouses that they aren't enough to please you.
• 25:46
  Daniel Moore: Also, pornography offers diminishing returns.
• 25:49
  Daniel Moore: It has to be more and more raunchy to create excitement and it produces less and less pleasure.
• 25:55
  Daniel Moore: It is an endless and empty pursuit that always ends up badly.
• 26:00
  Daniel Moore: And I think you can probably agree with that.
• 26:03
  Daniel Moore: That I know for us, if we introduce that into our relationship, that would be I think that would feel invasive, don't you?
• 26:11
  Michelle Moore: Oh, I know.
• 26:12
  Michelle Moore: For me, it would feel very invasive.
• 26:15
  Michelle Moore: I know.
• 26:16
  Daniel Moore: Because I do feel like that if it takes that to stimulate yourself just to get into the mood or get into the, you know, have the desire to want to have those types of relations with your spouse, well, eventually I think that tells me with the way that the human brain works, eventually that's not even going to be enough.
• 26:34
  Daniel Moore: And then that's when those problems start having uh between the two of you, where then that divorce is probably gonna be looming at your doorstep because your spouse is supposed to be more than enough for you.
• 26:47
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 26:48
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, we've talked about that repetitively through this whole series.
• 26:51
  Daniel Moore: And if it comes to a point where you can't do one of the most uh sensuous uh things with your spouse, one of the most intimate things that you can even share with each other without having some kind of a stimulation, there's a problem.
• 27:06
  Michelle Moore: Well, I was just sitting here thinking, you're my desire, you know.
• 27:09
  Michelle Moore: It you know, if I'm sitting there thinking about watching something to make that my desire to be able to, you know, make love or do something with you, that to me means this this is more important, like you were just saying.
• 27:24
  Michelle Moore: I couldn't imagine putting something above my husband.
• 27:28
  Michelle Moore: Like, you know.
• 27:30
  Daniel Moore: I I well, there's something just even in the fact knowing that we can turn each other on.
• 27:34
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 27:35
  Daniel Moore: Because once you get to that point where that doesn't even happen, that really does mess with your mind.
• 27:41
  Daniel Moore: You know, and we've been there, we've been at that point.
• 27:43
  Michelle Moore: Medical stuff I had to go through.
• 27:45
  Daniel Moore: And so and we'll talk about that in a different episode.
• 27:48
  Daniel Moore: Uh that's a struggle and a fight sometimes that you have to push your way through to try to get past that and rebuild some of that back up.
• 27:55
  Daniel Moore: And it's not easy.
• 27:57
  Michelle Moore: Well, let me ask you this.
• 27:59
  Michelle Moore: You know, you had this issue when you were married before.
• 28:04
  Michelle Moore: Did that not come between you and her?
• 28:07
  Daniel Moore: It did.
• 28:08
  Michelle Moore: I mean, in the long run.
• 28:09
  Michelle Moore: How did that make her feel?
• 28:12
  Daniel Moore: Well, she was partaking in it as well.
• 28:14
  Michelle Moore: Oh, okay.
• 28:15
  Daniel Moore: It was it was not a secret in my first marriage.
• 28:18
  Daniel Moore: Uh both of us, well, we had other things that happened in there too.
• 28:22
  Daniel Moore: It it led to a lot of bad things.
• 28:24
  Daniel Moore: And you've you're aware of some of that because I've told you.
• 28:27
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, well, I'm aware of all of it, but you know, I'm just so it you know, it's not a it's just not a game to play.
• 28:33
  Daniel Moore: You could it's very dangerous territory to move into with a marriage because you know, you you talk you see these swinging couples and they feel like they can swing from you know, share partners between each other and whatever.
• 28:47
  Daniel Moore: I don't understand how that can actually be well.
• 28:50
  Michelle Moore: I think you would get attached to somebody else, you know.
• 28:52
  Michelle Moore: That's just not something you open the door to.
• 28:55
  Daniel Moore: You're messing with your emotions at that point and the the uh the very core being of who you are and what creates love inside of you.
• 29:03
  Michelle Moore: So how did you guys work through that?
• 29:05
  Daniel Moore: Like, or did you guys we didn't really?
• 29:08
  Daniel Moore: Um, I think once all of that started taking place, it was about halfway through that first marriage, and then once all of that started, combined with other things that were thrown into the mix, it all just went downhill from there.
• 29:21
  Daniel Moore: And it did come to a point where I feel like this the sexual intimacy part and the desire, uh, you know, having the ability to be turned on by each other, I think a lot of that disappeared and eventually just vaporized.
• 29:38
  Daniel Moore: Because, in essence, like it, like we've been talking about here, when you allow this stuff to take place in your life, we are watching uh even though it's on a TV screen, it doesn't matter.
• 29:48
  Daniel Moore: That's you can't unsee anything.
• 29:50
  Daniel Moore: Anything that you ever see in your life, it's embedded there as a memory forever.
• 29:55
  Daniel Moore: And those are the things that you fight as you move on in life.
• 30:00
  Daniel Moore: You you're constantly, especially if you're ashamed of all of that, that's the stuff you're trying to shed off of you.
• 30:05
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, but that's also the stuff that Satan wants to fight you with.
• 30:08
  Daniel Moore: Oh, I'm sure.
• 30:09
  Daniel Moore: That becomes his weapons.
• 30:11
  Daniel Moore: Oh and he will continually, just like moving into the next marriage, uh, if something starts going bad or whatever, if you had that tendency in the first time, then it's easy to have that tendency again to get involved in that again.
• 30:24
  Daniel Moore: And so there you are, you're fighting another battle to make sure that does not happen and repeat itself.
• 30:30
  Daniel Moore: And so that's what's bad with addictions.
• 30:33
  Daniel Moore: You know, a life-controlling situation or an addiction in your life, once you have, once they have that toll hold and they have that grasp on someone like that, it does take a miracle of God to shed that off and to leave it completely behind you and never have it bother you ever again.
• 30:50
  Daniel Moore: You have to have God in that equation, or I just don't see how that works.
• 30:54
  Daniel Moore: I really don't.
• 30:56
  Daniel Moore: And so, you know, with with that situation, it's like I've been there and done that, and I've seen what it can do to a marriage, and it's not worth it.
• 31:06
  Daniel Moore: I'd punch you, it's not worth it at all.
• 31:08
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, because if you lose somebody that you truly love, oh yeah, somebody that truly means something to you over something like that.
• 31:16
  Michelle Moore: I mean, not that I had any right to do what I did.
• 31:19
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, I mean, it's no different, you know.
• 31:22
  Michelle Moore: A sin is a sin in the marriage, you know, but still, I mean, I and I don't know why I would think an affair would be any different than pornography.
• 31:30
  Michelle Moore: I mean, really and honestly, it's not.
• 31:32
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, it's the same level, you know.
• 31:34
  Michelle Moore: But at the same time, I I just that's so hurtful.
• 31:38
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Michelle Moore: And I and I think about a friend that found out that her husband was doing that, and it just broke her heart.
• 31:48
  Michelle Moore: And I can remember her for quite some time going through it and not wanting to have sex, um, and him not understanding why.
• 31:58
  Michelle Moore: And it took them months to get through it and get past it, and they had to set um barriers of what he could do and what he couldn't do for the trust to be.
• 32:11
  Michelle Moore: I mean, God eventually worked it out.
• 32:12
  Michelle Moore: They're still together today, but uh it it it was very, I mean, I walked a time with her to where it was very, very hurtful for her, and she did not understand what was wrong with her.
• 32:22
  Michelle Moore: So mentally, I mean, it it messes with the other spouse.
• 32:38
  Daniel Moore: Well, for one thing, when you see something on video, a lot of times those addicted spouses will start trying to bring some of that stuff into the bedroom.
• 32:45
  Daniel Moore: And if the other spouse doesn't understand what's going on, and all of a sudden their uh spouse is trying to introduce all these new ways and positions and all this other stuff to take place in the in the bed at night that never happened before.
• 33:00
  Daniel Moore: Uh, in all reality, the person that's hooked up on the pornography that's trying to introduce that into the room, uh, there's a lot of visual things going on in their mind that have nothing to do with their spouse.
• 33:11
  Daniel Moore: They're visualizing all the stuff they've seen on video while them and their while them and their spouse are trying to do this intimate thing together.
• 33:19
  Daniel Moore: And that that's a robbery.
• 33:22
  Daniel Moore: I mean, in all reality, when that takes place, you need to be focusing on each other and what each other can give each other to satisfy those needs.
• 33:31
  Daniel Moore: You don't need some, you know, film strip replaying in one of the spouses' heads while all this is going on.
• 33:38
  Daniel Moore: And in all reality, I guess, and and if you really think about it in a a true way, they're not really having sex with their spouse.
• 33:45
  Daniel Moore: They're thinking all this other stuff while they're going through the motions, you know.
• 33:49
  Daniel Moore: And I think a lot of people don't understand and and think of it that way, but that's the true reality of it.
• 33:54
  Daniel Moore: A lot of people also don't understand that sex is a spiritual matter, but in all reality it is.
• 34:00
  Daniel Moore: The reason for this is a secularization of our culture and the fact that sex has been decontextualized from marriage and God.
• 34:07
  Daniel Moore: But we have to remember that God created sex.
• 34:10
  Daniel Moore: And why did he create it?
• 34:12
  Daniel Moore: He created it for marriage alone, nothing else.
• 34:16
  Daniel Moore: Even though that may sound old-fashioned to some people, it's actually the truth, and it's the reason our culture is sexually imploding.
• 34:24
  Daniel Moore: That's why it's all falling apart.
• 34:26
  Daniel Moore: We have stolen sex from God, and we're wondering why it isn't working the way that it should.
• 34:31
  Daniel Moore: Sex is a sacred spiritual experience with incredibly serious consequences that we must understand.
• 34:38
  Daniel Moore: There's a scripture here in 1 Corinthians chapter six, and Michelle will you read that for us?
• 34:44
  Michelle Moore: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
• 34:48
  Michelle Moore: Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?
• 34:53
  Michelle Moore: Certainly not.
• 34:54
  Michelle Moore: Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her?
• 35:01
  Michelle Moore: For the two, he says, shall become one flesh.
• 35:06
  Michelle Moore: But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
• 35:10
  Michelle Moore: Flee sexual immorality.
• 35:13
  Michelle Moore: Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
• 35:21
  Michelle Moore: Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
• 35:31
  Michelle Moore: For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in spirit, which are God's, and that's first Corinthians chapter six, fifteen through twenty.
• 35:44
  Daniel Moore: And this scripture pretty well puts the nail in the coffin on the fact that if you are living together unmarried, having sexual intimate relationships, or if you're swinging, or if you're uh having you're single and you're just random having sexual partners and in the dating scene, if you truly feel like you're a Christian, this scripture here tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.
• 36:09
  Daniel Moore: When God comes inside of us and the Holy Spirit comes inside of us, that's where he dwells.
• 36:14
  Daniel Moore: If it's sin to do these sexual things outside of marriage, and that's something that God's against and he does not allow us to do in order to inherit the kingdom of God, why do you think you can still go to church and be a Christian but then sleep around like that?
• 36:29
  Michelle Moore: Yep.
• 36:30
  Daniel Moore: God's gonna God's gonna evacuate the the premises.
• 36:34
  Michelle Moore: Yep, you're exactly right.
• 36:36
  Daniel Moore: He's gonna leave the building, as they say about Elvis.
• 36:38
  Daniel Moore: And so you have to make sure that you really watch what you're doing because, in all essence, sex is a spiritual matter.
• 36:47
  Daniel Moore: It's not just a physical thing that, oh, I've got control of my body and I can do whatever I want.
• 36:52
  Daniel Moore: No, that's not really the way that works.
• 36:54
  Michelle Moore: I think a lot of people say it's my body, it's my choice.
• 36:57
  Daniel Moore: Exactly.
• 36:58
  Daniel Moore: Uh, they do that with you know the abortion thing and and other areas, and that that does apply here as well.
• 37:03
  Daniel Moore: And yes, it is our bodies, and God has instructed us to take care of our bodies, and he's given us direct orders on how to do that.
• 37:11
  Daniel Moore: And so we need to make sure that we do it in the correct manner.
• 37:14
  Daniel Moore: You know, we've got to remember that we're not animals, we're spiritual beings.
• 37:18
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 37:19
  Daniel Moore: And this is the truth that Apostle Paul he was trying to impress this upon the Corinthians.
• 37:24
  Daniel Moore: He was trying to get them to understand that our sex organs are connected to our spirits.
• 37:28
  Daniel Moore: And when we have sex with someone, we become spiritually connected to that person permanently.
• 37:34
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 37:34
  Daniel Moore: Paul used the example of prostitution.
• 37:36
  Daniel Moore: He enlightened those who thought they could have a casual sexual encounter with a prostitute without consequences to the spiritual reality that they had actually become spiritually connected to them.
• 37:46
  Daniel Moore: Because our society has secularized sex and removed it from its true spiritual context.
• 37:52
  Daniel Moore: Many people think of it as a casual recreational issue.
• 37:56
  Daniel Moore: They look at it in that manner.
• 37:58
  Daniel Moore: They don't realize that every act of sex is spiritual in nature and has vast consequences on our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our spirits.
• 38:07
  Daniel Moore: When you have multiple sex partners, you create powerful soul ties to those people.
• 38:13
  Daniel Moore: Even though the acts of sex that you had with them may be in your past, that spiritual tie that you have to them is in your present and is compromising your ability to bond to your spouse as you should.
• 38:26
  Daniel Moore: You know, I have a lot of respect for people that uh, especially church-going adults that will save themselves for marriage, but yet they'll they'll still marry someone that's already had sex before.
• 38:40
  Daniel Moore: You know, it that's always intrigued me because I know for the longest time when I grew up, uh, there was especially a lot of girls were more like this than the guys, but they always felt like that if they kept themselves for marriage, then the guy needed to.
• 38:52
  Daniel Moore: And they wouldn't date anybody that had broken that, you know.
• 38:57
  Daniel Moore: Um, but more and more today you'll see that maybe one spouse did keep themselves, the other one probably might not have.
• 39:03
  Daniel Moore: Um, but yet they still uh you know get hooked up or whatever.
• 39:07
  Daniel Moore: Um, but you know, and it's not something that needs to be a dark cloud over our marriage, the fact that someone messed up in the past, and you know, there's reasons in sin that that does happen sometimes.
• 39:19
  Daniel Moore: It it doesn't make it right, but at the same time, it doesn't mean they can't be a good spouse.
• 39:25
  Daniel Moore: Right, you know, in the future.
• 39:26
  Michelle Moore: Well, and I think if God's placed them in that person's path and you know that that's your soulmate, I say soulmate, but the person that God has intended for you to marry, they may have walked a past.
• 39:38
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 39:39
  Michelle Moore: But at least that person is in tune with the Holy Spirit to know that that's the person that God's planted in front of them.
• 39:46
  Daniel Moore: Right.
• 39:46
  Daniel Moore: And that person that did mess up, they're just gonna have to figure out between them and God and their spouse how to shed that off of them and not let it go forward into their marriage and not let it affect them.
• 39:56
  Daniel Moore: You know, one pastor was teaching on this subject and he illustrated the compromising nature of soul ties by using duct tape in a piece of carpet.
• 40:04
  Daniel Moore: He took a piece of the duct tape and he pressed it down hard on the carpet.
• 40:07
  Daniel Moore: He did this to illustrate having sex the first time.
• 40:11
  Daniel Moore: He then pulled the tape off of the carpet and it had carpet thread still stuck to it.
• 40:16
  Daniel Moore: This represented the spiritual fact that a part of the person that we have sex with stays with us even after that sexual encounter is over.
• 40:25
  Daniel Moore: He then took the tape and pressed it down the carpet for a second time to demonstrate a second sexual encounter with a new person.
• 40:32
  Daniel Moore: This time, it was harder to get the tape to stick because of the threads that were covering part of it.
• 40:38
  Daniel Moore: He then pulled it off for the second time and more carpet threads were stuck to it, representing a second soul tie.
• 40:45
  Daniel Moore: He then repeated the same thing several more times and finally the tape wouldn't stick at all.
• 40:50
  Daniel Moore: This represents what happens when casual sexual encounters have so spiritually compromised us that we are incapable of bonding to anyone.
• 41:00
  Daniel Moore: And I, for one, have seen people that pretty much ran contests when they were teenagers on who could sleep with the most people, and some of several of them are still single to this day.
• 41:13
  Daniel Moore: I think a lot of it's they just cannot bond with anybody anymore.
• 41:17
  Daniel Moore: They've had so much of that take place in their life, and they've done that so much that it has really numbed them to the special relationship part of having someone uh that you can be, you know, emotionally and sexually tied to without all of that baggage and with all without all of that stuff in their past and their background.
• 41:39
  Daniel Moore: And so there's a lot of truth to this.
• 41:41
  Daniel Moore: If you just if if you keep doing this thing over and over, having the sex before marriage and just making this a contest or whatever you're trying to do, it's doing damage to you each time that you do that.
• 41:53
  Daniel Moore: And you're gonna make it harder and harder and harder for you to be able to bond with somebody in the future when you have all of this in your background.
• 42:00
  Daniel Moore: Uh you know, of course, with the fact of not having God involved.
• 42:05
  Daniel Moore: God can help change anything, obviously.
• 42:08
  Michelle Moore: Yep.
• 42:08
  Daniel Moore: But uh just as far as the human side of things, uh, we have to be careful with that.
• 42:14
  Daniel Moore: Now there is an answer to soul ties that can return us to healthy condition, which we just kind of mentioned.
• 42:18
  Daniel Moore: It begins by repenting of sexual immorality.
• 42:22
  Daniel Moore: And we need to repent of every act of immorality before God and ask his forgiveness.
• 42:26
  Daniel Moore: We must then break the soul ties that we have with every person that we have had sex with other than our spouses.
• 42:33
  Daniel Moore: This can include ex-spouses, people in our past, and it can also include online encounters where we have bonded with someone sexually.
• 42:41
  Daniel Moore: So to do this, there is a prayer that you can pray for that.
• 42:46
  Daniel Moore: And Michelle, you want to share that with us with that just this is kind of a a template prayer, I guess you could say, uh, that you can read.
• 42:56
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 42:56
  Michelle Moore: Father, in Jesus' name, I repent of being sexually immoral with and pray you will forgive me.
• 43:06
  Michelle Moore: I receive your forgiveness.
• 43:08
  Michelle Moore: I didn't realize it at the time, but I joined my spirit and body with them, and there is still a part of them inside of me that shouldn't be there.
• 43:18
  Michelle Moore: I sinned against my own body through my sexual sin.
• 43:23
  Michelle Moore: I pray for you to heal me spiritually, and I break the soul tie I have with in Jesus' name.
• 43:31
  Michelle Moore: I bind the work of the enemy in that area and command him to leave.
• 43:36
  Michelle Moore: Holy Spirit, I pray you will fill my sexual organs and cleanse them of anything that is unclean or unhealthy.
• 43:45
  Michelle Moore: I dedicate my body as the temple of the Holy Spirit and my sexual organs as sacred.
• 43:51
  Michelle Moore: In Jesus' name.
• 43:53
  Michelle Moore: Amen.
• 43:55
  Daniel Moore: And you can fill those blanks with whoever that person is that you need.
• 43:59
  Daniel Moore: To break that soul tie with.
• 44:01
  Daniel Moore: You know, once you've broken those, you must break off contact with any person involved and remove all reminders of them from your life.
• 44:09
  Daniel Moore: If your soul ties with an ex spouse that you must still see on occasion, you need to make it as limited and accountable as possible.
• 44:17
  Daniel Moore: If you are addicted to pornography, you need to confess your problem to someone who can help you and keep you accountable.
• 44:23
  Daniel Moore: There are men's and women's groups in churches that minister freedom to sexual addicts.
• 44:28
  Daniel Moore: Pure Desire Ministries, which you can visit their website at puredesire.org.
• 44:33
  Daniel Moore: That's a very good ministry that helps men, women, and couples find sexual freedom.
• 44:38
  Daniel Moore: Many churches use their Conquer series and it's very effective.
• 44:42
  Daniel Moore: You can also use the app Covenant Eyes.
• 44:45
  Daniel Moore: That's another one that's uh very well known.
• 44:49
  Daniel Moore: Uh I know a lot of churches actually use that on their pastoral staff.
• 44:52
  Daniel Moore: Um if you're a a staff member uh that's paid on staff at churches, I like that.
• 44:59
  Daniel Moore: Uh they make they make them put that on their phones and they have accountability partners that that watches you know everything that goes on so that people don't have such a tendency to mess up with that.
• 45:10
  Daniel Moore: The only way to find true freedom is to learn to take our thoughts captive.
• 45:13
  Daniel Moore: Sexual bondage isn't centered on our genitals, it's centered on our thinking.
• 45:18
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Daniel Moore: Although some people like to think with their genitals, that's just not the way that's supposed to work.
• 45:23
  Daniel Moore: I've never been completely addicted to pornography myself, but I was exposed to it regularly from the time that I was eleven and all throughout my first marriage.
• 45:31
  Daniel Moore: I struggled a lot with lust and had a difficult time stopping my mind abuse.
• 45:36
  Daniel Moore: Learning to take my thoughts captive and meditate on scriptures totally set me free and kept me free sexually.
• 45:42
  Daniel Moore: It is also the key to being set free from worry, anxiety, fear, depression, and many other issues.
• 45:49
  Michelle Moore: That's right.
• 45:50
  Daniel Moore: To experience true sexual intimacy with our spouses, we must return to the biblical foundations of sex and marriage and rediscover how God designed it in the beginning.
• 46:00
  Daniel Moore: To do that, we must understand that marriage is a covenant relationship.
• 46:04
  Daniel Moore: The Hebrew word covenant, that means to cut.
• 46:07
  Daniel Moore: You don't make a covenant, you cut a covenant.
• 46:10
  Daniel Moore: That means there must be blood spilled.
• 46:13
  Daniel Moore: This is why God cut Adam to create Eve.
• 46:16
  Daniel Moore: He could have made Eve out of the dirt just as he had done with Adam, but that wouldn't have been a covenant.
• 46:22
  Daniel Moore: Covenant requires a much higher price than any other type of relationship.
• 46:27
  Daniel Moore: A covenant relationship is a sacrificial and a permanent relationship.
• 46:31
  Daniel Moore: In relationships you get what you pay for.
• 46:34
  Daniel Moore: If you want something convenient and easy, you don't really want a covenant.
• 46:39
  Daniel Moore: But in a covenant relationship you are safe and you can unpack your bags and open your heart.
• 46:44
  Daniel Moore: You don't have to worry what the next problem you have will end the relationship.
• 46:49
  Daniel Moore: A covenant relationship is a sacred relationship with God in the center of it.
• 46:53
  Daniel Moore: You must remember that when God created Adam, Eve, and marriage in the second chapter of Genesis, he lived with them.
• 47:00
  Daniel Moore: It wasn't just a man and a woman.
• 47:02
  Daniel Moore: It was a man and woman with God in the center of their relationship, and that is the marriage the way that God designed it.
• 47:10
  Daniel Moore: We must also understand that every covenant relationship has a seal and a sign.
• 47:16
  Daniel Moore: For example, our relationship with Jesus, it's a covenant relationship that he shed his blood to establish.
• 47:22
  Daniel Moore: In our covenant relationship with him, water baptism is the covenant seal that seals the deal.
• 47:28
  Daniel Moore: And you can read about that in Colossians two, eleven and twelve.
• 47:32
  Daniel Moore: And communion is the covenant sign that shows we are walking in good faith.
• 47:36
  Daniel Moore: And you can read about that in first Corinthians eleven, twenty three to twenty six.
• 47:41
  Daniel Moore: In marriage, sex is the covenant seal and sign.
• 47:44
  Daniel Moore: After our weddings, we consummate our vows by having sex.
• 47:49
  Daniel Moore: The vows alone don't make us married in God's sight.
• 47:52
  Daniel Moore: Sex makes us married in God's sight.
• 47:55
  Daniel Moore: And the first time a woman has intercourse, her hymen stretches and tears, causing bleeding.
• 48:00
  Daniel Moore: In ancient cultures, a bride had to produce a cloth with blood on it after her wedding night to prove that she was a virgin.
• 48:07
  Daniel Moore: Scientists are baffled by the existence of the woman's hymens because they have no practical purpose.
• 48:14
  Daniel Moore: And that is true, God didn't create them for a practical purpose.
• 48:18
  Daniel Moore: He created them for a spiritual purpose, to seal the covenant.
• 48:22
  Daniel Moore: We realize that some of you listening to this episode probably had sex with someone beside your spouse before you were married.
• 48:29
  Daniel Moore: This doesn't mean that you are not married now in God's sight.
• 48:32
  Daniel Moore: It does mean that the person or persons you had sex with before you created soul ties, you need to deal with those.
• 48:40
  Daniel Moore: If you had sex with your spouse before your wedding, it didn't make you married.
• 48:44
  Daniel Moore: It just created a soul tie.
• 48:46
  Daniel Moore: But once you make a commitment publicly and have sex as a legal couple, your sex from that point forward is covenant sex.
• 48:54
  Daniel Moore: Another way to say it is this casual, noncommitted sex isn't covenant sex.
• 49:00
  Daniel Moore: Our point in saying all of this is to get us to return to a spiritual and biblical view of sex and marriage.
• 49:07
  Daniel Moore: It is only there that you can begin experiencing sexual intimacy as God designed it.
• 49:13
  Daniel Moore: So with us, as we navigated through the problems that we had, and we had that time frame there, you know, where the bad stuff was going on, and you know, we were potentially headed for a divorce, and uh the intimacy part was really non-existent to a point, you know, during that time.
• 49:32
  Daniel Moore: Uh I think now since we've moved past all of that and we've reframed our thoughts and our mind and actually concentrated more on God, I you know, I feel like between us that's really fixed a lot of those issues.
• 49:46
  Michelle Moore: Oh, I'd agree with that.
• 49:47
  Daniel Moore: Because we look at it differently.
• 49:49
  Michelle Moore: And I think that's the mindset too.
• 49:51
  Michelle Moore: Mm-hmm.
• 49:52
  Daniel Moore: You know.
• 49:52
  Daniel Moore: And so, you know, as far as you know, I I know for the I know myself, I do look at sex as being a spiritual thing, obviously, because we look at it biblically.
• 50:05
  Michelle Moore: Yes.
• 50:06
  Daniel Moore: And we understand how it's designed in the Bible and that kind of thing.
• 50:10
  Daniel Moore: Uh, but I know for myself, I think that that's another part of what makes us feel so close to each other.
• 50:15
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, when we were first married, obviously, you know, we loved each other, but it wasn't spiritually.
• 50:25
  Michelle Moore: It was what we were doing was sex.
• 50:28
  Michelle Moore: Right.
• 50:29
  Michelle Moore: You know, make love, whatever you want to call it.
• 50:32
  Michelle Moore: But I think now, to me, I don't look at it that way at all.
• 50:37
  Michelle Moore: And I think that's what makes it ten times better, you know?
• 50:41
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Daniel Moore: It's part of the big picture.
• 50:43
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 50:44
  Daniel Moore: Because I know with us, because God is so centered in what we do between the two of us now, and we want to make sure that everything that we do between us is m is biblical, more like the more so than what we did at the beginning, that this part is also included.
• 51:00
  Daniel Moore: And so the fact that I already, you know, love and adore you like I do because God has given me such a special person, it actually makes uh that sexual part of our relationship even that much more fun and that much more exciting to me, and and that much more of a deep relationship and a deep tie that I have to you.
• 51:20
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 51:20
  Daniel Moore: And I think, you know, I myself, and I don't know how you feel about it, but I I can attribute that to God.
• 51:25
  Michelle Moore: Oh, absolutely.
• 51:26
  Daniel Moore: Being in our relationship.
• 51:27
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 51:28
  Daniel Moore: So uh sex is also the covenant sign of marriage.
• 51:32
  Daniel Moore: And so we don't have sex to satisfy ourselves or our spouses.
• 51:36
  Daniel Moore: That's not the point of it.
• 51:37
  Daniel Moore: We also have sex as a sign of good faith.
• 51:40
  Daniel Moore: A covenant sign means we are honoring our covenant relationship.
• 51:44
  Daniel Moore: As believers, we need to take communion regularly as a sign to the Lord that we remember our covenant with him and are thankful for what he did to make it possible.
• 51:53
  Daniel Moore: As husbands and wives, we need to have sex regularly with our spouses to let them know that we remember the sacred covenant that we have with them and that we are walking in good faith in it.
• 52:03
  Daniel Moore: When God sees his people bearing covenant signs, he pours out his blessings.
• 52:09
  Daniel Moore: And when he sees us taking the covenant sign of sex and using it in a sinful manner outside of marriage, guess what?
• 52:16
  Daniel Moore: He's gonna judge it.
• 52:18
  Daniel Moore: Yep.
• 52:18
  Daniel Moore: Read us that scripture what uh the writer of Hebrews says about that in Hebrews 13.
• 52:24
  Michelle Moore: Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.
• 52:34
  Daniel Moore: And that's Hebrews 13, 4.
• 52:36
  Daniel Moore: So if you're a believer, God loves you and you're on your way to heaven.
• 52:41
  Daniel Moore: He doesn't stop loving us when we are sinning, he just stops blessing and protecting us in some ways.
• 52:48
  Daniel Moore: And the purpose isn't to harm us, the purpose is to get our attention and cause us to repent and turn back to him and his ways.
• 52:56
  Daniel Moore: You've probably never thought of your marriage and sex the way we have described it in this episode.
• 53:02
  Daniel Moore: But after listening to this, we would encourage that you discuss it as a couple and consider dedicating your marriage as a sacred covenant before God.
• 53:11
  Daniel Moore: Also, dedicate your sex organs and bodies as instruments of covenant blessings to bond you together in the beautiful intimacy as God designed.
• 53:22
  Daniel Moore: So as we wrap up this week's episode and finish this up, is there anything that you'd like to add to this before we go?
• 53:32
  Michelle Moore: So I just want to tell you guys a little secret.
• 53:34
  Michelle Moore: My husband gave me a birthday card.
• 53:38
  Michelle Moore: Uh my birthday was a couple weeks ago.
• 53:42
  Michelle Moore: And in that birthday card that he surprised me with happens to be a little cruise, um, a a little cruise ship.
• 53:50
  Michelle Moore: It has a picture of me in the top, and then him at the top, and it says ship the hoy.
• 53:56
  Michelle Moore: And his was Bon Voyage.
• 53:59
  Michelle Moore: And then in the bottom it says pack your bags, and it says the date.
• 54:04
  Michelle Moore: So, you know, I've I've been teasing through it through this whole series.
• 54:09
  Michelle Moore: I've teased my husband about a cruise, or you know, you're gonna get me something like a dog or something, you know.
• 54:15
  Daniel Moore: She's high maintenance.
• 54:16
  Michelle Moore: I am not high maintenance people.
• 54:17
  Michelle Moore: I just want you to know that.
• 54:18
  Michelle Moore: I am not.
• 54:20
  Daniel Moore: Uh no, she's not.
• 54:21
  Michelle Moore: He surprised me, and we will be going on a cruise.
• 54:24
  Michelle Moore: And I just it's gonna make me cry because honestly, from where we've walked through, we've been married now 20 23 years.
• 54:35
  Michelle Moore: And we've been through a lot together.
• 54:37
  Michelle Moore: And I feel more now connected to my husband than I ever have, but just the little surprises, and that's not a little surprise, that was a big surprise.
• 54:50
  Michelle Moore: But it's just the little day, everyday things that he does.
• 54:53
  Michelle Moore: God used our testimony and he's still using it today.
• 54:58
  Michelle Moore: But I love the fact that he's redeemed us, restored our marriage, and I'm so thankful for that.
• 55:05
  Michelle Moore: So thankful for that, and I'm so thankful for God being able to let us speak the words out to each and every person that that is listening.
• 55:15
  Michelle Moore: And you know, we have got somebody has messaged us with a question, and um we just we'd love for anybody to reach out to us if you need a prayer for your marriage, um kids' marriage, grandparents, whatever it is, you know, that's why we're here, that's why we're doing this podcast because we believe in it.
• 55:38
  Michelle Moore: Marriage is very sacred, marriage is a union before God, and God's taken our marriage and completely turned it upside down and for the good.
• 55:49
  Michelle Moore: And he used the bad for the good.
• 55:52
  Michelle Moore: Yeah, and I'm so thankful for what he's done for us, and I'm thankful for my husband.
• 55:59
  Michelle Moore: I just want to take this time to honor him because if it wasn't for him and God and every like rise up, everything that just all came together for God to use this.
• 56:10
  Michelle Moore: I'm just very, very thankful for that.
• 56:13
  Daniel Moore: Yep.
• 56:13
  Daniel Moore: And I'm looking forward to our time together for that week and just have some time to relax and enjoy each other with no distractions and around us, no dogs yapping and barking and all that good stuff.
• 56:26
  Michelle Moore: I'm surprised you can't hear a dog breathing heavy over here because he's right next to me and he's sound asleep and he does snore.
• 56:34
  Michelle Moore: So so sorry if you do hear some snoring.
• 56:36
  Michelle Moore: It is not me or Daniel, it is our little dog.
• 56:39
  Daniel Moore: Yep, he's a sweetheart.
• 56:41
  Daniel Moore: So we are getting close here to wrapping up.
• 56:53
  Daniel Moore: We've got going here for about an hour pretty close.
• 56:56
  Daniel Moore: I do want to uh, as she mentioned, we've had you know some people reach out and I do want to share uh a message that we did receive and kind of respond to it here and let you guys know that there is a shout-out link in our show notes.
• 57:11
  Daniel Moore: If you're on your cell phone and you click that, it will actually let you send us a text and you can text questions or encouragement, uh, give us some examples of what's happened in your life, just whatever you feel like that you want to do.
• 57:24
  Michelle Moore: Or the fact that I don't sound stupid.
• 57:26
  Michelle Moore: Yeah.
• 57:27
  Michelle Moore: Just kidding.
• 57:29
  Michelle Moore: Because I tell Dan all the time, I'm like, I don't know that I sound so great, but whatever.
• 57:34
  Daniel Moore: Well, it's weird when you hear yourself.
• 57:36
  Daniel Moore: I know it is.
• 57:37
  Michelle Moore: It really is.
• 57:38
  Daniel Moore: But yeah, you can send us that stuff, and if you'll allow us to, we'd love to be able to share it on future episodes.
• 57:43
  Daniel Moore: We can't respond back to you.
• 57:44
  Daniel Moore: That's a one-way text.
• 57:46
  Daniel Moore: So if you do send us the text, we will respond to that in a future episode.
• 57:50
  Daniel Moore: But one question that was sent to us here recently is how can I help my daughter get back with her husband without saying too much?
• 57:58
  Daniel Moore: And, you know, Michelle and I, we when we received this and talked a little bit about how we would answer that back.
• 58:04
  Daniel Moore: You know, in all reality, um people have a mind of their own.
• 58:09
  Daniel Moore: And there's you can pour into people and pray for them and try to encourage them to do the right thing.
• 58:15
  Daniel Moore: You can give them books to read, you can give them podcasts to listen to.
• 58:19
  Daniel Moore: Uh, there's lots of different things that you can do.
• 58:21
  Daniel Moore: But when it comes down to the very end result of it, your adult children or whoever it may be that you're concerned about with that, they have their own choice to make.
• 58:31
  Daniel Moore: And there's not really, as a matter of fact, if you get too pushy, you're probably going to end up causing some division between you and and that person, and you're going to have some issue there.
• 58:41
  Daniel Moore: And so you just want to make sure that you know you're not uh letting that happen, but just be there as a support, a prayer support, and an encourager, and live out your life as an example of how theirs could be.
• 58:58
  Daniel Moore: And I know we all want our kids to stay together.
• 59:00
  Daniel Moore: We want our parents to stay together, want our grandparents.
• 59:03
  Daniel Moore: Nobody likes to see a divorce happen in a in a family at all.
• 59:07
  Daniel Moore: Uh, that just totally breaks up the whole family unit when that happens, and then it creates blended situations, and then there's that's a whole different scenario and battle all in itself.
• 59:17
  Daniel Moore: Um, but in all reality, you know, it's just one of those things that it's gonna be difficult to convince anybody to do that.
• 59:24
  Daniel Moore: Just listen to them uh the best that you that you possibly can, show them that you're there for them, ask open-ended questions, uh, just try to get some some questions and feedback from them on what they're going on.
• 59:37
  Daniel Moore: Uh, you know, highlight the good things, uh, the positive aspects that they've had in that relationship.
• 59:43
  Daniel Moore: Um, encourage and communication because communication's huge in relationships.
• 59:49
  Michelle Moore: And I would also add to the fact that, you know, depending on if the son or the daughter, whatever the son-in-law and daughter-in-law, whatever it may be, if none of them are in church, you know, as a parent, you should be pleading the blood over their lives daily.
• 1:00:07
  Michelle Moore: Um, I mean, I do um on all my kids, you know, pleading the blood over just not their life, but their marriage, their children, stand in that gap for them, you know, be that prayer warrior for that family or those people, or I say those people, be a prayer warrior for the couple.
• 1:00:28
  Michelle Moore: You know, include, you know, reach out to some friends, you know, where two or three or more gathered, you know, you you need to reach out and say, I'm not gonna tell you any of the issues, but could you please be in prayer, you know, for them.
• 1:00:44
  Michelle Moore: It doesn't always work out the way we want, and we all know being a parent to adult children is tough.
• 1:00:51
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, it's very tough.
• 1:00:53
  Michelle Moore: There are so many times that we can see things, we can see things that the children don't see.
• 1:00:58
  Michelle Moore: But you have to let God work it out.
• 1:01:01
  Daniel Moore: Yeah.
• 1:01:02
  Daniel Moore: And so that's probably the best thing that can be done in that situation.
• 1:01:06
  Daniel Moore: If you're in that situation at all, if there's a church locally that maybe might have a marriage 911 uh curriculum or something that uh for focus on the family for marriages in crisis.
• 1:01:19
  Daniel Moore: You can get them to go.
• 1:01:21
  Michelle Moore: I think that's one of the best things ever.
• 1:01:23
  Daniel Moore: Yeah, try to talk them into doing that.
• 1:01:24
  Daniel Moore: In all reality, though, the the therapy and the consultations need to be with a biblical counsel.
• 1:01:31
  Daniel Moore: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:01:32
  Daniel Moore: Very highly recommended from us.
• 1:01:34
  Daniel Moore: Uh there's a lot of good therapists out there that don't approach it biblically, but until we understand marriage biblically, it's it doesn't really mean a whole lot because you have to look at it biblically to understand why marriage is even in place to begin with.
• 1:01:46
  Michelle Moore: Right, right.
• 1:01:47
  Daniel Moore: And so uh hopefully those suggestions are a little helpful to anyone that may be going through that out there.
• 1:01:53
  Daniel Moore: Uh just but the big thing is prayer, just like Michelle was saying, you know, wrap them up in prayer, get some prayer warriors involved, and just uh you know, plead the blood over that couple and ask God to do what he does best to put that back together.
• 1:02:07
  Daniel Moore: So we're gonna go ahead and call it a wrap for this week.
• 1:02:10
  Daniel Moore: And we just thank you guys for joining us.
• 1:02:13
  Daniel Moore: Uh next week, we're going to be concluding our series on the four laws of love.
• 1:02:18
  Daniel Moore: It's kind of crazy to believe that.
• 1:02:20
  Michelle Moore: It's actually gone by pretty fast.
• 1:02:22
  Daniel Moore: It has.
• 1:02:22
  Daniel Moore: And we're already to the end of it.
• 1:02:24
  Daniel Moore: We're going to talk about seven steps to sexual pleasure and intimacy next week.
• 1:02:29
  Daniel Moore: So I'm sure that's going to be another interesting subject that we're going to talk about.
• 1:02:33
  Daniel Moore: So you don't want to miss that.
• 1:02:34
  Daniel Moore: Make sure you subscribe, and that way that you'll get those episodes.
• 1:02:38
  Daniel Moore: I'm Daniel Moore.
• 1:02:39
  Daniel Moore: This is Michelle, my wife.
• 1:02:40
  Daniel Moore: Uh, she's been sent here co-hosting with me this week.
• 1:02:43
  Michelle Moore: Bye, guys.
• 1:02:44
  Daniel Moore: And from both of us, we thank you for listening.
• 1:02:45
  Daniel Moore: This show wouldn't be possible without you.
• 1:02:47
  Daniel Moore: If you're a fan of our show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• 1:02:50
  Daniel Moore: Or if you'd like to help us out, just take a few seconds to give us a five-star click.
• 1:02:54
  Daniel Moore: Please subscribe to us on your favorite platform.
• 1:02:56
  Daniel Moore: The links for those are in the show notes.
• 1:02:58
  Daniel Moore: Well, that's all for this week.
• 1:03:00
  Daniel Moore: And we pray that your marriage is stronger and your walk with God is closer after this episode.
• 1:03:05
  Daniel Moore: This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries.
• 1:03:08
  Daniel Moore: We pray that you have a blessed week.
• 1:03:11
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• 1:03:14
  Aria: In this world, there are many disconnects that cause chaos in our lives.
• 1:03:17
  Aria: This podcast is birthed from the desire to share hope and restoration of the power of the gospel by being transparent and open in our biblical walk with God.
• 1:03:25
  Aria: Each week, we take a few moments as we navigate God's word and peer into other people's testimonies and encourage each other to connect the gap.
• 1:03:32
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